Trump could abolish Department of Education. Wake schools says it would be a mistake.
The Wake County school system is warning that the potential elimination of the U.S. Department of Education could have a devastating effect on thousands of families who rely on federal funding and services.
Multiple media outlets are reporting that President Donald Trump is drafting an executive order to carry out his campaign promise to eliminate the federal Department of Education.
Wake school board members said Tuesday that dismantling the agency and the programs it oversees could affect everything from magnet schools to services for low-income students, special-education students and homeless students
“The potential abolishment of the Department of Education would really put a deficit not just on our work but on the taxpayers as well because the taxpayers would have to step in the gap,” said school board vice chair Tyler Swanson.
Role of the U.S. Department of Education
The U.S. Department of Education employs about 4,400 people. It has an annual budget of $79 billion and was created in 1979 by Congress and President Jimmy Carter, UPI reported.
The department oversees and enforces the federal Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA) that serves special-education students. The agency is also in charge of the federal government’s student loan program and the Title I program that serves schools with low-income students.
Trump has said he wants to hand the Education Department’s services back to the states.
It’s unclear how Trump would dismantle the Education Department, But he’d need Congressional approval.
Lobbying to keep the Education Department
The school board is looking at including preserving the Department of Education in its federal legislative agenda.
During Tuesday’s work session, school board members talked about a long list of federal services and programs that they say could be lost if the Education Department is cut.
“So if these programs are dismantled, Wake County alone could lose funding for programs like IDEA, which funds special education students,” school board chair Chris Heagarty said during a news conference Tuesday. “We have over 20,000 special education students right here in Wake County. Those students alone, if pulled out of our school system, would be the 14th largest school district in North Carolina.”
Heagarty also pointed to concerns that Wake could lose federal grants that have helped support its magnet school program. Wake has frequently won these federal grants that are meant to help voluntarily desegregate schools.
In 2023, Wake received a grant that’s supposed to provide $14.9 million over five years to support five magnet schools in eastern Wake. In 2022, Wake received a grant that’s supposed to provide $13.5 million over five years to support four magnet schools in Raleigh and Wake Forest.
“When we lose those magnet grants, we lose access to programming, to staff, and then we have to make hard decisions,” Heagarty said. “Can we find that money locally? Do Wake County taxpayers make that up in their property taxes? Or do we have to furlough teachers?”
‘War on public education’
The potential elimination of the Department of Education comes amid a flurry of education changes announced by the Trump administration.
One of the first acts of the new administration was to rescind a policy that had kept schools largely off-limits to federal immigration raids. Wake, like many other school districts, issued guidance to principals and sought to reassure families of undocumented students.
The administration issued a memo freezing federal funding, including for schools, before rescinding it after it was challenged in court.
Last week, Trump signed an executive order threatening to withhold federal funding to schools that he says “indoctrinate” students with “gender ideology” and “discriminatory equity ideology.” The US. Department of Education also announced it was dropping Biden administration changes that expanded Title IX protections for LGBTQ+ students and staff.
“There’s a war on public education,” Heagarty said. “We’re seeing that with the orders. We’re seeing that with the language being used to describe the orders, and we’re just trying to do the best we can for our families and our kids.”
